Note from Rep. Gara: Pre-Saturday Rapture?!?!, Post-Unspecial Session Newsletter
You were probably as surprised as I was to wake up and find out there’s a guy in Florida who says the rapture will be tomorrow. I guess I always thought I’d get more notice before the end of the world.
I owe you a post-session e-news, and given what might happen tomorrow, I don’t think I have any more time to procrastinate on this. Though it would be nice to get more notice next time if this guy is wrong, like he was in 1994. I’d like to have my house and chores in order before an apocalypse. But I guess, so would everyone else.
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Rep. Gara Calls for Corrections to Fibs in Oil Tax Ads
(ANCHORAGE) – Today Rep. Les Gara will address the Bartlett Club, at Denny’s on Debarr Road at noon. To curry favor for the Governor’s proposed $8 billion in unjustified oil company tax reductions over the next five years, fancy industry ads are on the air that mislead Alaskans. “We think Alaskans should be told the truth. You can make up your own opinions, but you can’t make up your own facts,” said Rep. Gara, who, with others, has proposed tax policies that won’t allow breaks unless they lead to more jobs, and more production and exploration.
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Democratic Budget Amendments Would Reduce Budget
Doogan, Gara attempt to cut budget by more than $2 billion
JUNEAU – In a year when the Alaska State Legislature is working on capital and operating budgets that total more than $12 billion, House Democrats offered amendments in an attempt to restore some restraint and responsibility to the budgeting process.
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Feds Respond To Democrats’ Concerns: Working To Move NPR-A Oil Development Forward
(JUNEAU) – On February 28, fourteen Democrats wrote the Secretary of the Interior expressing concerns about the rejection of ConocoPhillips’s oil development plan in NPR-A. “Development in NPR-A is crucial to our attempts to stem the decline of North Slope oil production, and the Army Corps decision denying the bridge permit was wrong,” said Rep. Les Gara (D-Anch).
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Note from Rep. Gara: The Unspecial Session: A Solution Requires A Radical Political Concept - Talking Without Lines In The Sand. And An Engaged Governor.
I’ve done my best these past two weeks to share what I learned as an attorney who started my career on a very contentious case – representing the State in its civil prosecution of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill case. Sticking your heels in the mud and drawing lines in the sand doesn’t end disputes – this one’s over the budget. We settled the state’s case with Exxon for $1 billion in 1991 – though the major damages were suffered by individuals who brought their own cases – and by not talking Exxon used its obstinance and power to drag that case out for two decades.
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